Upgrade Inc
by ZephyrRising
Summary: Caleb finds himself in a strange society called the Gear Project where no adults watch over the kids of the society, and the kids can use powerful weapons called Gears to battle one another. How will Caleb learn to fit into this new life? Read to find out! Possible OC Submissions in the Future.


**Hello everyone, ZephyrRising here with another new story. This idea just came to me, so I put it on paper and here it is. I have some fairly large plans for the series, and I hope you enjoy reading it.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon.**

* * *

I walked through the hall with the rest of the crowd, trying not to get pushed around too much. We came to a huge auditorium, where hundreds of seats were set up. I sat down and waited for the orientation to start. The lights began to fade as the screen began to glow. A young adult appeared on the screen. His hair was completely white. "Hello everyone! Welcome to the Gear Project! I'd like to congratulate all of you for making it into this very difficult program. Now, you all may be wondering what the Gear Project is. While I could tell you, I think I'll just give you a personal demonstration." I felt a pain in my head like a massive headache multiplied multiple times over. I struggled to keep my eyes open. "Sorry about the pain, it will cease in 3 … 2 … 1." I opened my eyes and saw a green bar right in front of me. "Everyone see that bar? That's your health. The rules of any battle in the Gear Project are simple. If that health bar goes all the way down, it's game over. You'll be recalled back to the closest Safe Zone, and you'll be out of the battle. The same goes for your Pokemon partners. The purpose of the Gear Project is to create Trainers who can fight on their own and alongside their Pokemon. Each of you will grow along your Pokemon and develop your own fighting style."

"You've all received faction requests from at least one Legendary based on your Pokemon, personality, etc. Review them whenever you want, and choose which one you think is best for you. You don't have to choose those ones, but you'll probably do best there. Oh, and one more thing. Try talking to your Pokemon, you'll enjoy what happens. Alright, everyone dismissed!" The kid flourished with his hands, and a green light consumed my vision.

I found myself in a huge dome shaped room with the rest. I looked down at my hands. They were both covered by gloves, with screens coming out of the left glove. I pulled my arm in front of me so I could see the screen. It was already on the Faction screen. I reached down to my belt, finding my Pokemon on the clip. I went over to one of the walls of the room and let out my Pokemon. Out popped a Gible and a Helioptile. "Hey you two. If you had a choice between these Legendaries, who would you follow?" The two held their heads in pain, before opening their eyes. It seemed like they were going through the same 'orientation' as me. Both of them looked at each other before saying "Zekrom," simultaneously I stumbled back and said, "You two can talk human?!"

"Yeah, we've been hiding it from you for ye- No, stupid, it just means you can understand us now. I guess it's a perk of being in the project." Gible said.

"You guys want to be out or in for now?"

"It's probably best if we're inside until we get to a less crowded area," Helioptile said. Gible nodded, and I recalled the two before looking at my glove and joined the faction. The screen read "Faction Information Received." Once again, the familiar glow covered my eyes as I was teleported to a new location. The light disappeared as I found myself in yet another auditorium. This one didn't have any chairs, unfortunately, so we were left standing up. A kid walked on stage. He had black hair and a black t-shirt with a blue lightning bolt on the front. "On behalf of our faction, I'd like to thank all of you for choosing us to be your faction. My name is Will, and I'm the leader of the faction. I know that you're all having to stand right now so I'll make it quick. Our faction is one of the two main factions that creates and distributes the custom-made Gears for the rest of the Project to use. All of you may be wondering what a Gear is. Well, to put it simply, a Gear is a weapon that can be charged with your Pokemon's energy. When it's charged, your weapon can use the same moves as your Pokemon. Let me demonstrate."

He held his hand out, and a blue light formed from his glove. He grabbed hold of it, and the blue light disappeared, leaving a sniper rifle in its place. At the same time, the roof began to open up. "Can everyone see the target up there?" Everyone in the room nodded. He took aim at the target and his rifle began to spark, electric currents arcing over the surface. A huge beam of electricity shot out of the rifle, hitting it directly. "That was Fusion Bolt, Zekrom's signature move." The rifle returned into his glove. "Of course, this is a Legendary class weapon. But, you'll all be able to get your Gears to fit your playstyles. The majority of our elite faction members aren't out on any missions today so they can answer any questions you need. Just find any person on the sides of the room. See ya!" He walked off stage, and I immediately rushed over to one of the people at the edge of the room.

"Oh hey, you're one of the new recruits! Nice to meet you! My name is Cullen, and I suppose I'll be your mentor for the next few days."

"Nice to meet you too. The name's Caleb."

"Alright, so let's start with the most fun part of the recruit experience. Follow me, and try to keep up." He began to jog through one of the corridors. I followed him as we entered out on a large street with a large amount of people walking around. "This is our main street, where you'll find all of the supplies you need for eaten any mission," Cullen explained.

"Mission?" I asked, puzzled.

"Missions are assignments that you can take. I'll explain it later." We entered a building across from the main building that we were in a few seconds ago. "This is the Combat Training Facility. It's where the most of the combat training courses happen. It's also where you can get your starting Gears." He walked over to the counter and picked up a ticket. "See the box over there? Reach inside, it will get you the Gear you need, based on your profile."

"Thanks." The box looked fairly normal, with a bright white light blocking my view of the contents. I reached in and felt my both of my hands grab onto something. I pulled both of them out. In my hands were a pistol and a short sword. Immediately, the two weapons turned into balls of energy and were absorbed by the gloves.

"Alright, you have your starting weapons, now let's get used to them!" Cullen said waving the ticket around. He placed the ticket in a small depression on one of the walls. Part of the wall slid away and we walked into a completely white room. The walls were covered with a grid-like pattern. "We'll just start with a simple lesson. To form your gears, just think about them appearing. Like this," He concentrated on his glove and out popped a metal quarterstaff. "See? Now you try." I focused on my glove and a ball of energy formed in each of my hands. I grabbed the balls of energy and it disappeared, leaving the pistol and sword in my hands. "Alright, now let's see how your fight. Don't worry about HP loss in here, there's no way you can hit 0 HP."

"Ready?" I said. Cullen nodded, and I returned my short sword into my glove and used two hands to hold my pistol steady, placing my finger on the trigger. I pulled the trigger and gun recoiled, firing a blast of yellow energy at my opponent. Cullen blocked the blast with his staff, looking slightly surprised. "That was faster than I expected. But..." He dashed forward, bringing the staff down towards me. I sidestepped his attack and fired a shot right into his side. He winced a little, "Not bad, but not as powerful as some of the other guns I've been hit with." He swung the staff towards me diagonally. Once again, I sidestepped his strike, crouching under to make sure he didn't hit. Suddenly, he stopped his weapon halfway and quickly swung towards my position. I put up my arms, blocking the staff and flew back from the force of the blow. My feet touched the ground, and I immediately aimed my pistol again, firing a few shots. Cullen blocked all of them while chasing after me. "Ranged attacks aren't working. Then …." I recalled my gun back into my glove and formed my sword, dashing forward. I took Cullen by surprise, slashing at him. He backstepped, but I got a small cut on his arm.

I followed up with another slash, forcing him to draw back. I kept my assault up, knowing that if I let up, he would catch me with an attack. On my next attack, I faked a lunging slash, forcing at him before using the momentum from the lunge to score a powerful hit on his legs. To my surprise, no blood came out despite it being a direct hit. Instead, just a red slash appeared on his legs. It looked digitally generated, similar to the heads-up display that came with the use of the Gear. Cullen stepped back before spinning his staff, pointing it towards me, and lunging forward with a barrage of strikes using the tip of the staff. I dodged as best as I can, but I was starting to run out of stamina from the battle. I felt myself misstep on one of my dodges, and Cullen took full advantage of my mistake, sweeping the staff at legs. I lost my balance completely from his low attack, falling over onto my back. I quickly tried to get up, but soon found myself face to face with Cullen's staff. "That's the match." He returned his staff and reached out his hand. "That was quite impressive. I wasn't expecting the switch to the sword; it really caught me off guard."

"Thanks, I appreciate it."

"Now, I'm not the boss of you, so you don't have to take my advice if you don't want to, but I would look into trying to increase your overall speed. It's already fairly good, and it would allow you to more effectively rush an opponent. I'd personally look into the parkour classes here at the Facility. Your speed combined with some parkour could make you very hard to hit. I think that there's a class scheduled tomorrow."

"I'll definitely look into that."

"Just talk the receptionist in the lobby. Oh, by the way, there's just a few more tips I want to give you, but we can do it while I'm walking you back to your lodging for now. Why don't you go ahead and I'll meet you in the lobby, I need to take care of some things real quick."

"Sure," I said, returning my dagger to my glove and turning around to get into the lobby. I found this very difficult because there was no door. "Um, where did the door go?" I turned around, thoroughly confused.

Cullen facepalmed and said, "I totally forgot about that. Wow, I feel really stupid right now."

"It's no problem." The wall slid back behind me and I went through. I looked around, getting my bearings. I saw the counter and walked up to it. The receptionist , like everyone else I had seen, was a kid. In fact, I hadn't seen anyone who looked like an adult since I got here. Even the first presenter and faction leader were both maybe 16-17 years old. The receptionist asked, "May I help you?"

"Yeah, I'd like to sign up for the parkour classes tomorrow?"

"Sure. Could you please place either of your hands on this area right here?" I placed my hand on the scanner. "Thank you. Normally, these classes would cost credits, but as a newbie to the Project, you get 3 free classes here. Would you like to use one of your free classes for this?"

"Yes."

"Alright, just give me a second." She brought up a holographic menu and cycled through some menus before saying, "You're registered. The class starts at 10 o'clock sharp." I went over to one of the seats in the lobby and released my two Pokemon.

"Hey, guys!" I said cheerfully.

"Yo," Gible said, raising one of his tiny hands in greeting. "How'd everything go?" I didn't respond instead choosing to form my weapons for them to see. "Woah, are those real?"

"They seem to deal damage to an area surrounding us that keeps us from getting killed. Although some of the damage and pain still seems to make it through. Other than that, they seem real. We'll have to start training you guys to fight against a bunch of different types of Gears."

"Can you use any special powers?"

"Not sure. What's a simple move that I could attempt?" I saw Cullen come out of the room, and walk over to me. "We'll talk about this later."

"Thanks for waiting. These are your Pokemon?" Cullen asked.

"Yep."

"They fit you quite well. Here, let me get out mine. This is Phari." An Ampharos materialized and rubbed it's eyes. "Like your Pokemon, Phari started at her first stage of evolution and now she's a big fluffy powerhouse." Phari gave Cullen a look. "Did you sign up for the parkour class tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Phari's good with ranged attacks and I have a Manectric that focuses on melee combat. Would you like me to give them some combat training while you're at your parkour training?"

"What do you two think?" I asked my Pokemon.

"Yeah, I'd love the training," Helioptile said.

"Same here," Gible said.

"So what's their opinion?" Cullen said.

This confused me, as he should have been able to understand him. "You can't understand them?" I asked.

"No, each person can only understand Pokemon that they're linked with. There are other advantages to being linked. For example," Cullen formed his staff and held it out. A yellow energy formed around the Ampharos and flowed into the staff. "Your links can charge your weapons, which can allow you to use the energy held within the weapons for your attacks. I'll show your Pokemon how to do it when I train them tomorrow."

"Thank you very much for doing all of this. I really appreciate it."

"Oh, don't worry about it. If it makes the faction stronger, it's worth the effort. We're not known as a combat faction, but when you complete some missions, you'll be glad that you have a general idea of your fighting style. One last thing, you'll find your housing in your user profile. That's free as long as you complete enough missions to fill the bar." Upon seeing my slightly confused face, he quickly said, "I'll explain everything else you need to know after your parkour training course." You better get to your housing quickly, they stop serving food in like 30 minutes.

"Now you tell me! Gible, Helioptile, cmon, we're going on a run. " I said while running out the front doors, yelling behind me, "Thanks again!" I pulled up the screen on my gloves and scrolled through the menus until I found a map function. There was a button that would direct me to my housing. I followed the instructions to the letter, and twenty minutes later, Gible, Helioptile and I arrived at our housing block's mess hall gasping for breath. Only one or two people remained in the mess hall, as it was only a few minutes until the building closed. I quickly grabbed a tray for my two Pokemon and me, and we wolfed down our food. Once we had eaten our fill, we left for I walked up to my housing and grabbed the door handle. I heard a small clicking sound as the door unlocked and I stepped into my room. It was relatively small, with only a bed and small cooking area. _"It is free; I guess I can't complain. I'll probably be able to get better accommodations as I stay here longer and get more powerful within the faction."_ I thought to myself. The three of us fell onto the bed, and we were out like a light.

* * *

 **Please let me know what you think about the story, so I can improve!**


End file.
